On the Detection of Multinucleon Events in Nucleus—Nucleus Collisions with Forward Calorimeters (ZDC)

Abstract

The detection of spectator nucleons emitted forward in the beam direction in experiments on the study of nucleus—nucleus interactions using forward Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs) allows the determination of the event centrality and the detection of the nucleons from electromagnetic dissociation (EMD). In this paper, we propose a simple combinatorial model for calculating the energy releases in the ZDC, taking into account the calorimeter acceptance and efficiency. Using this model, the effect of the limited acceptance and nucleon detection efficiency on the spectral shape in the ZDC and the possibility of measuring the yield of a certain number of nucleons from the EMD is studied at LHC energies.